"It's been an intense time, in good ways and bad," she says in the December issue of InStyle. "You find out who you really are and who you're married to. You find things inside yourself you never imagined were there."

As for being so forthcoming about her battle with depression, Zeta-Jones, 43, whose next movie Broken City is out in January, admits it hasn't been easy.

"You can't escape what people say, and if you're human it can be painful," the actress says. "The smartest thing I did was to stop going online. I'm the sort of person who will just look for the negative."

Continues Zeta-Jones: "[My husband] Michael [Douglas] can't really understand it, but that is the way I am. With my bipolar thing, that's poison. So I just stopped. Cold turkey. And it's so liberating."

"I'm not the kind of person who likes to shout out my personal issues from the rooftops, but with my bipolar becoming public, I hope fellow suffers will know it is completely controllable," she says. "I hope I can help remove any stigma attached to it, and that those who didn't have it under control will seek help with all that is available to treat it."